Will Calderdale have enough water to serve all the new homes due to be built in the district in the future, asks councillor

With six months of dry weather behind Calderdale, Coun Regan Dickenson (Con, Rastrick) asked, “will we have enough water?”

He said a new reservoir had not been built in the area since the 1970s.

If Planning Inspector Katie Child approves the Local Plan – a blueprint to shape land-use across Calderdale over the next decade – and says it should be implemented, it would mean thousands of new homes potentially built, many of them in south and east Calderdale areas like Rastrick.

Responding at a meeting of the full Calderdale Council, Cabinet member for Regeneration and Strategy, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said water supply was certainly something considered in the Local Plan in infrastructure terms.

Coun Scullion told the meeting that building a new reservoir would cost “zillions” although that did not entirely rule it out.

There were a whole range of measures which needed to be taken as a whole country in terms of managing its water, she said.

In the case of the Local Plan, the Inspector had taken representations on all these issues.

Often questions in Calderdale were posed around too much water in the winter and flooding and how to try and manage that, said Coun Scullion.

“The question of whether as a country as a whole we can manage sufficient water supply is one really for the Government and DEFRA,” added Coun Scullion.